Jasper County Citizenhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com
enSend in the clowns - From this cornerhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/send-clowns-corner
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>They won’t have clowns at the Missouri State Fair next year.</p>
<p>They’re running it.</p>
<p>Last week, the State Fair Commission voted to ban a rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask as the announcer asked if the crowd want to see “Obama” get run down by a bull. The ban against the clown is a lifetime one, even though local reports indicated the crowd roared its approval.</p>
<p>It was all part of a skit, and it wasn’t even original. There are well documented reports of a similar skit done in 1994. Except the clown wasn’t wearing an Obama mask; it was George H.W. Bush. I’ve heard of similar skits with masks of Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. There was no public outcry. The lieutenant governor, U.S. Senator and governor didn’t cry out in protest.<br />
The State Fair Commission, panties in a wad, went beyond banning the clown. The members of that august body voted to require the rodeo cowboy association – its officials and subcontractors – “have successfully participated in sensitivity training.”</p>
<p>I have some comments for the commission.<br />And a question: Have you lost your ever-lovin’ minds?</p>
<p>Agreed, the clown’s joke perhaps isn’t all that funny. It’s admittedly in poor taste.</p>
<p>But hey, he’s not running for office. He’s a CLOWN. At a rodeo.</p>
<p>He may be running for his life, literally, as he challenges a snot-slinging 2,000-pound angry bull away from a downed would-be bull rider. The guy wasn’t hired for brain surgery or political insight, and there is no doubt in my mind he failed the funny test.<br />
But the aftermath was disgraceful. Anybody afraid some of the slinging bull fecal matter would stick to him or her quickly got in line to condemn, criticize or apologize. The Republican lieutenant governor spoke out, as did the Democrat senior senator from Missouri.<br />
It’s hard to criticize anybody for being caught flat-footed. How would you anticipate such a ham fisted approach to entertainment. Even a clown ought to recognize the joke was tasteless and probably not appropriate for the young audiences attending a state fair rodeo. But hey, it’s been done before, with other presidents and elites. However, even a novice comedian should realize poking that type of fun at this anointed president is going to get somebody’s knickers in a knot.</p>
<p>I hate to make a big deal out of a trivial matter, but since when is it so outrageous for a clown to lampoon a politician?<br />
The clown could have been criticizing the lieutenant governor, or talking about strip clubs. He could have ridiculed the senior senator, or asked her where was her distraught over four murdered Americans in Benghazi while her president was AWOL. Or he could have been lampooning the governor and his lack of exasperation over his administration puking out private information of thousands of Missourians and the guv’s lack of action in the face of those illegal acts.</p>
<p>Not to put too much importance on it, but since when do we tar and feather a guy, a comedian, for getting rough with a politician? Don’t we in the country have a fundamental right to say ugly things about people, especially our politicians? Shoot, folks, the nice speech doesn’t need protection. It’s only the offensive or ugly or controversial things which require protection.<br />
Your grandma doesn’t need free speech to talk about her grandchildren. It’s when we disagree that we need speech protected.</p>
<p>So, it comes down to a failure by the people in power – the governor, lieutenant governor, senator, the fair board – to protect the “little people” they are busy robbing by their deeds while pontificating with their mouths.<br />
The rodeo clown worked, and he worked hard, to entertain that state fair crowd and, more importantly, protect the riders. Those men, for whatever reason, pitted their aching arms and sore bodies against bulls weighing 10 to 15 times what they do. When flung from the backs of the bucking bulls, they knew they had somebody in their corner. They knew they could rely on the clown to risk his own health and welfare to distract the raging bull, to get that dangerous animal’s attention and draw him away from the riders whose backsides wound up in the dirt.<br />
Each time the clown pulled, drug or escorted a rider to safety, he celebrated success. Each time he made the crowd laugh as he helped fill time between rides, he knew success.</p>
<p>And the riders knew somebody was there, protecting their backs from harm.</p>
<p>The failures in this story don’t include the clown. He did his job, perhaps not perfectly, but to the best of his ability.<br />
The fair board, the politicians, those people turned and scampered to safety behind a cloud of accusations and cowardice. They should have had the clown’s back; instead they plunged a knife in it.</p>
<p>Truly, they are the clowns.<br />
And they aren’t very funny, either.</p>
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Fri, 16 Aug 2013 20:23:55 +0000pdonley9 at http://jaspercountycitizen.comhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/send-clowns-corner#commentsWe're everywhere!http://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/were-everywhere
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>You can purchase the most recent edition of the Carl Junction Jasper County Citizen at: </p>
<ul><li>Both Casey's locations in Carl Junction</li>
<li>Fastrip (Airport Drive and Carl Junction)</li>
<li>Randy's Bulldog Drive-In</li>
<li>Summer Fresh Market (Rack outside store -- 24 hours a day)</li>
<li>Bruners Drug</li>
<li>City Hall (in the city office)</li>
<li>Kum and Go (Stone's Corner)</li>
<li>Always Buying Books</li>
<li>Or call (417) 649-6757 to start your subscription, delivered to your home or post office box</li>
</ul><p><a href="mailto:fstop@centurytel.net">fstop@centurytel.net</a><br />
Sarcoxie Publishing<br />
PO Box 400<br />
Sarcoxie, MO 64862<br />
(417) 649-6757<br />
(417) 548-3311<br />
Fax (417) 548-3312</p>
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Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:55:13 +0000pdonley8 at http://jaspercountycitizen.comhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/were-everywhere#commentsElectionhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/election
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Check out the April 3 Carl Junction city and school results in the April 4 edition of the Jasper County Citizen.</p>
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Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:48:08 +0000pdonley7 at http://jaspercountycitizen.comhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/election#commentsWho's got your back?http://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/whos-got-your-back
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>When I was little, like most of the people around us we made do and used a lot of imagination in devising games and ways to pass time.<br />
Gary, my older brother, and I often were able to come up with activities to keep our young minds and bodies active. When cowboys and Indians had fought to a bitter standstill and there wasn't anybody else around to get together a game of Indian ball, we moved to other outside activities.</p>
<p>One summertime event was to knock down the wasp nests which gathered under the eaves on the north side of the house. Our home was built on a hill, and the north side was the downhill side; the eaves were probably 12 feet or so above the ground.<br />
Now nobody in their right minds wants to attack (red) wasps on a rickety wooden stepladder, so we turned to other aids. We had a metal Hudson sprayer, one of those rigs in which you pump up pressure in the top to force the liquid out a hose. When the pressure gets low, you pump it back up, something like a hand pump. </p>
<p>If there's sediment in the tank, you can also pump grit into the nozzle, which pretty effectively cuts off the flow, meaning you stop spraying and take things apart, clean out the grit and put them back together again. It's pretty simple, but not something you want to do with red wasps on the attack.</p>
<p>When we ran out of bug spray – and we didn't always have bug spray to start with – we used just plain old water. It doesn't kill the wasps, but if you get their wings wet, they can't fly, and you can go stomp on them. Quickly, before their wings dry out and they again can seek out the cause of their distress When you've got all the wasps off the nest, you can get a stick and knock down the nest, then douse it with a little gasoline. Or stomp it.</p>
<p>There's not a lot of finesse in the game, but there are risks. </p>
<p>When you first hit that nest with water or bug spray, you're going to irritate some wasps. They don't take kindly to your sprinkling, and they come seeking the source of their discontent. All of them. If it's a big nest, we're talking dozens of them.</p>
<p>If you're on the spraying end, you must choose wasp attack partners carefully.</p>
<p>Don't even think of taking on the job with somebody who is going to run away whining and crying at a little old wasp sting. (It never dawned on us until decades later some people are deathly allergic to the sting of a wasp. Apparently we weren't.)</p>
<p>This wasp patrol partner must have the courage to stick in there with you, and he must be willing to help knock them off you even at peril to himself. You, too, must be willing to suffer a little in order the offer protection to your partner. You have to have one another's back.</p>
<p>Even as adults it's a concept which is important.</p>
<p>Firemen and other emergency and law enforcement personnel absolutely must have somebody there to cover their back, to help them fend off a flank or rear attack, somebody willing to stick there until the job is done.</p>
<p>Truly enough, we all need our backs guarded, for that's where visibility is worst. When we're unsuspecting, that's when the attack will be most effective.</p>
<p>While I won't recommend you send your kids out playing in the wasp fields, there are lessons which can be learned there, toughness which can be developed and trust which can be earned.</p>
<p>But in our lazy society, we seem to have turned to trusting in the government to watch our backs – as a source for food, income, even housing. </p>
<p>That ought to simply astound you. </p>
<p>The leaders of government – the politicians – have an approval rating of less than 20 percent. Only one if five of us believes Congress is doing a good job, yet we trust them with our well being.</p>
<p>Four out of five of us, on the other hand, think they are inefficient or ineffective, or worse, just plain crooks. </p>
<p>There is ample evidence to bolster that argument, yet we blissfully disregard the harm they do, the lies they tell and the personal enrichment they accomplish. We still trust them to have our backs.</p>
<p>If you've put your trust in the government to secure the blessings of liberty for us and those who follow, it's a foolhardy path you've chosen.</p>
<p>Our nation has sprung from an extremely self-reliant people. I suspect they'd be astonished, amazed and distraught at our choices for people to watch our backs.</p>
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Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:10:27 +0000pdonley6 at http://jaspercountycitizen.comhttp://jaspercountycitizen.com/news/whos-got-your-back#comments